The bold vision that underpins the synodal process in Australia
On Monday, a week-long national assembly is to begin in Sydney which, it is hoped, will agree a blueprint for the future of the Church.
The Church’s global synod process has reached a decisive moment. Australian Catholics have been blazing a trail and might show where things are heading
Since last year, Catholics across the world have been taking part in
local synod processes and similar themes are emerging from every
continent. These include calls to tackle clericalism, to give a more
visible role to women, and to become a more inclusive Church.
Australia
could demonstrate the direction of travel. On Monday, a week-long
national assembly is to begin in Sydney which, it is hoped, will agree a
blueprint for the future of the Church in Australia. It will also act
as something of a laboratory in which the experiment of synodality will
be put to the test. While the Church in Germany has sometimes been
accused of “going it alone” in its synodal process, Australia decided
instead to prepare for a “plenary council”, the highest form of
gathering for a local church. It is a more formal process, with the
final decisions signed off by the Pope, and it is expressly focused on
discernment and action. The council leads to legislation and decrees
that will be binding on the local church.
The process has faced criticism from both progressive and conservative elements: for some, it is cramped by its close tie to Rome, which it is said will make bold changes impossible; while for others, any iteration of synodality is a waste of time and resources. Perhaps the cavilling shows the bishops and the council planners have been doing something right.
Participants in what will be the second and final assembly of the council will meet next week to discuss and vote on a series of motions. All the bishops will take part. The proposals are the fruit of a long process of discernment in which 222,000 people have participated and more than 17,000 submissions been considered.
The motions include proposals that lay people be permitted to deliver the homily during Mass, that the rite of general absolution in the Sacrament of Reconciliation is more widely used, that “clear and inclusive language is adopted in the liturgy”, and that the Church creates “stable, publicly recognised, appropriately resourced” ministries for women. There is a call – provided the Pope authorises the move – for the admission of women to the diaconate to be considered.
The proposals are not only about internal reforms. Every parish and Catholic institution in Australia is being asked to formulate an individual plan to protect the environment; a national Catholic Social Teaching formation programme is recommended, along with calls to embrace Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the life of the Church, including through the use of indigenous symbols and rituals in liturgies.
What is most striking is the boldness of the vision that underpins the whole process. The decision to hold the council, the document outlining the motions says, “expresses the understanding of the Church and its mission articulated in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and in subsequent papal teaching”. The aim to become a “Christ-centred Church” that is “open to conversion, renewal and reform”. To that end, the motions to be debated and voted on include steps to ensure that the “discernment and synodal leadership envisaged at Vatican II” and “called for by Pope Francis” becomes a reality. These include the establishment of a national synodal “round table”; a commitment that every diocese hold a synod within the next five years; and that active diocesan pastoral councils be established. This is vital, given that the laity already take a leading role in the Church in Australia. Catholic schools make up almost 20 per cent of all schools in the country, and shrinking religious orders are transferring their mission in education, healthcare and care for the elderly to structures known as “Ministerial Public Juridic Persons”, allowing lay people to continue the work.
Perhaps most crucially, the plenary council talks about the “need to ensure that decision-making is not confined to those who exercise sacramental power”, echoing Pope Francis’ new constitution for the Roman Curia, which broke the link between ordination and the power to govern in the Church. The expectation is that all parishes and dioceses will begin to operate in a synodal manner.
“Changing culture is the big prize,” Bishop Shane Mackinlay, the vice president of the plenary council and the leader of the Diocese of Sandhurst, told me over Zoom. “I think the most substantive and significant thing is the experience of how we go about making decisions. We’ve got all the bishops in the country, and significant leaders amongst clergy and the broader baptised who have been engaged over this time in a lived practice of discernment.” It is a process that differs from the “adversarial, antagonistic, who’s going to win the argument” approach so often seen in the partisan parliamentary system in Australia and the UK. Rather, Bishop Mackinlay stressed, it is about asking “What can I learn in this dialogue that I am missing, so that together we’re hearing and being shaped by the Holy Spirit?”
The bishops decided to embark on a plenary council in 2016, although a decision for some kind of “national ecclesial event” had been proposed in the early-2000s, partly in response to the clerical sexual abuse crisis. The decisive push came after the 2015 synod on the family, during which Pope Francis set out his vision of the Church as an “inverted pyramid”, where the “top is located beneath the base”. The Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge, then president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, and present in Rome for the synod, told me last year: “That was the moment for me personally, when there was something like a flash of inspiration, when I thought that after all the years of uncertainty and hesitation, the discussion, the discernment, this was the time.”
All the motions being debated next week need a two-thirds majority to
be passed; they must also be approved by two-thirds of the bishops. The
Holy See then needs to give its approval before the decrees can be
promulgated. Rome has been keeping a close eye on events, with the
Congregation for Bishops, led by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, as interlocutor
between the Holy See and the council. The Church in Australia has had to
face devastating revelations of sexual abuse and of failures by leaders
to deal with abusive priests and protect minors. During the assembly,
an apology will be made to the survivors of abuse and their families,
accompanied by a ritual of lament for the suffering caused by the
Church’s failures. Although the Church will also re-commit itself to
implementing and improving its safeguarding practices, the plenary
council is a recognition that the abuse scandal requires more than
protocols and procedures; only a deeper reform of the institutional
culture will keep the Church a safe place for children and vulnerable
adults.
There is a long way to go, but the plenary council is a
decisive moment in the life of the Church in Australia. While many local
Churches in the English-speaking world have barely left base camp in
the synodal journey, Australian Catholics may be blazing a trail that
others could follow.
Christopher Lamb is in Australia for the final assembly. He will be speaking at the Novotel Parramatta, greater Sydney, on Tuesday at 7.30 p.m. and at Newman College, Melbourne, on 11 July at 5 p.m., local time. Tickets are free but advance booking is essential: mark.oconnor@marists.org.au
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